1. Field of the Invention
The invention disclosed broadly relates to data processing and more particularly relates to the architecture and methods of work flow management in a distributed data processing system.
2. Prior Art
The following patent application relates to the invention:
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 07/902,908 filed Jun. 22, 1992 entitled "System and Method for Establishing Work Procedures in a Work Process Management System," by Marvin Addink, et. al., assigned to the IBM Corporation, now abandoned.
(Mason 1985) U.S. Pat. No. 4,503,499 by G. R. Mason, et al., entitled "Controlled Work Flow System" (Mar. 5, 1985);
(Beizer 1991) U.S. Pat. No. 5,054,096 by M. M. Beizer, entitled "Method and Apparatus for Converting Documents into Electronic Data for Transaction Processing," (Oct. 1, 1991) and the related Invention identified above.
To understand prior art, it is necessary to understand differing associated terminology.
(Mason 1985) describes an invention "system for automating office procedure to coordinate the flow of work on (imaged) documents and the transmittal of documents between office personnel," but it uses a different work flow management method than the present invention.
"In the controlled work flow process, the scheduling of work tasks in a project is controlled by the program executed by the data processor, which program is called the "work daemon." Each paperwork project involving a multiplicity of documents and a multiplicity of personnel to work on the documents is referred to as an "effort" and files referred to as RO files, each designating the schedule of paperwork for a given effort, are stored in the memory. Each effort is broken down into tasks with each task to be performed by one individual worker on one document. These tasks are called "work events." The individual workers and managers who make use of the controlled work flow system are called "users." The work daemon operates on the effort RO files to notify the users at the work stations that work events are ready to be carried out and issues BORROW, RETURN, STORE, and COPY requests to the central library facility to transmit documents between the work station processors and the central library facility. When a user indicates that he wishes to proceed with a specified work event, which involves modification of an existing document, the work daemon will issue a BORROW request to the central library facility to cause the document of the work event to be sent to the work station processor corresponding to the user for the work event. When a user indicates that he has completed a work event on a borrowed or newly created document, the work daemon will issue a RETURN or STORE request to the central library facility and cause the document, as modified, to be sent back to the central library facility for storage back in the library memory.
"An effort manager will be named to be in charge of each effort and an effort manager will usually have the responsibility for setting up the schedule of work events in a work effort. This schedule is called a "route specification" and each effort RO file is generated from the information in a route specification. To generate a route specification, the effort manager makes use of a program called the "effort program" in which he enters the data of a route specification into the computer system by means of one of the work stations. The effort program is preferably resident at each of the remote processors. The data will go first into a route specification file and, from the route specification file, it will be compiled into an effort RO file and stored in the memory."
(Beizer 1991) describes an invention for subjecting a large volume of scanned documents to transaction processing, together with routing programs to dictate the information flow, but it provides almost no detail on how the routing method works, It states the following about the routing program, which is the method for work flow management: "Basically the route program decides where the image of the document, images of related documents and data extracted by an optical character reader (OCR), which together form the "record," are to be transmitted and when. This routing program considers the document type, overall workload in the company, the capabilities of the department, and special instructions. The special instructions may be created by operator intervention so that privileged customer documents are given priority treatment." In contrast, the invention described herein provides details on a specific family of routing methods.
The related invention identified above, describes an invention that defines a method for establishing and executing work procedures in a work process management system for either imaged documents or multimedia documents, but compared to the present invention it uses a different work flow definition method, it is based on a different system architecture, and it has a different theory of operation. It defines a "work process" as a combination of "work baskets," "decision points," "collection points." "events," and "routes". An "object" is the smallest unit within the system (e.g., single document image, voice record, video record), a "folder" is a collection of objects with a common identifier, and a "work package" is (or points to) the entity that is worked on by a work process; a work package has a "work package" is (or points to) the entity that is worked on by a work process; a work package has a "work package identifier" and a "work package instance." The method defines a relational database based on these concepts, populates it with the details of a specific application through use of a work management definition program, and uses the database to maintain the state of work package instances for that specific application through use of control programs at a host computer and workstations. In contrast to (BT9-92-005), the invention described herein partitions the work flow into a centralized control component and a distributed services component, defines the work flow with a general STD, and uses s centralized control mechanism with centralized work queues to dispatch work to those services.
Existing commercially available work flow management software products known to the applicant differ in theory of operation and other key features from the present WFM invention. IBM ImagePlus, used by USAA for automobile insurance form processing, does not use DCE, does not run on a POSIX-based operating system, and does not use the same "pull system" method, among other differences. Likewise holds for TASC-Flow (TASC 1992), used in a major bank's mortgage processing division. The Plexus work flow manger, used by American Express, does not use DCE and has a different theory of operation. Scale-up properties of commercially available work flow management software, while unbounded in principle, are not widely understood except for specific installation.